Fort Worth daily gazette. (Fort Worth, Tex.) 1882-1891, 1887-04-22

legislator, and manners and customs
the institutions of nation in general.
From hence it follows that when these
manners and customs are to be changed,
it ought not to be done by laws; this
would have too much the air of tyrsnny
it would be better to change them by in
PRODUCING other manners and customs
Nations are in general very tenacious OF
their customs; to take them away by
violence is to render them unhappy; we
should not, therefore, change them, but
engage the people to make the change
themselves" Ibid, page 344 We can
now comprehend that the Democratic
party has wisely Incorporated these fun
damental principles of government in the
national platform, in opposition to al
sumptuary laws, and the interference
with the personal liberty of the citizen.
The same great principle is announced IN
the declaration of independence, "that all
men equally derive from their Creator
the right TO the pursuit of happi-
ness; and equality in that pursuit is an
inalienable right" These personal rights
were secured by the best blood of our
revolutionary sires. Definition of liber-
ty: every man has freedom to do all
that he wills, provided he infringes not
upon the equal freedom of any other
man" Herbert Spencer's Social States.
page 12l ''The only freedom which
deserves the name is that of pursuing our
own good in our own way, so long as we
do not attempt to deprive others of theirs
or impede their efforts to obtain it.. Each
is the proper guardian Of his own health,
whether bodily or mental and spiritual.
Mankind fpr his err ~
each other to live as seems good to ther-
selves than by compelling each to live IS
seems good to the rest" John Stuart
Mill on Lib5rty, page %
now quote the language OF Governor
John A. Andrews Of Massachusetts, one
of the ablest and best men of that great
state. He was man of the greatest
purity OF character, and total abstainer
from all Intoxicating drinks. At the re-
quest of So 900 petitioners he went before
the state Legislature asking a repeal of
the prohibitory liquor law, and made
the most unansWerable argument ever
delivered against prohibitlon. After
proving by the highest scientific and
medical authority in Europe and America
that alcoholic liquor is food product, g
diet as well as beverage, beneficial to
aged people, and in many cases of sick
ness and inValidism Indispensable, he
said: 81 aver that a statute Of pro-
hibition aiming to Danish from the table
of an American citizen by pains and
penalties an article of diet which g large
part of the people believe to be Iegiti-
mate, which the law does not even pre-
tend to exclude from the category OF
commercial articles, which in every ma
Jion, and in some form in all history has
held its place amorg the necessities or
the Injuries Of society, is absurdly
weak, or else it is fatal to any liberty.
Whenever it will cease to be absurd and
weak, society by the operations of moral
causes will have reached the point where
it will have become useless, or else it
will be fatal 10 any liberty since, if not
useless, but operated and fulfilled by
legal force, its execution will be per-
petTated upon s body of subjects in
whose shjeCt characters there will be
combined the essential qualities which
are needful to cowardice and servility. Do
you tell me that no beverage into which
alcohol enters used in cooking or placed
upon the table, fitIy belongs TO this Cata-
lOgue of foods? answer that is a ques-
ton of science which neither the Cover
nor nor the Legislature has any lawful
capacity to solve for the people. Do you
tell me then that whether the catalogue is
eXpurgated Or not all such food is un-
and unfit to be taken? | an
sWer, that IS question of dietetics, audit
is for the profession of medicine. There
is no principle, no odds between prescrib-
ing an article of diet and prescribing a
dose of physlc by authority of law. The
next step will be to ptOvide for the tax
ing of calomel, anthony and epson salts
Oy act of the general court. Do you tell
me, however, that all such beverages in
their most innocent use involve certain
danger that possibly any one may, prob
ably may and certainly some will abuse it,
ana thus abuse themselves, and by cOnse-
luence that all men as matter of pru-
tence, and therefore of duty, ought to alb
stain from and reject it? l answer, thai
Is 3 question of morals, for the answer to
which we must resort to the
Bible or to the church or the
teachings Of moral philosophy.
The right to answer it at all, or to pre-
tend to any opinion upon it binding the
citizen, has never been committed by the
people in any free government on earth
20 the possession of the secular power.
# the state can pass between the citizen
md his church, MS Bible, his conscience,
Ind to act upon questions of his own |
personal habits, and decide what he shall |
10 on merely personal grounds, then it |
las authority to invade the domain of |
hougdt as well as of private life an |
prescribe bounds to the freedom of con- |
science. There is no barrier in principle |
where the government must stop, short of
state church prescribed by law and |
by persecution. Do you tell |
ne that the using of wine or beer as a
leverage, however temperately, is of a
dangerous tendency by reason of it's ex-
nipple? Do you insist that temperate use
i it by one man may be pleaded by
mother as the occasion and apology for
IS abuse? l answer, that If the govern
nent restraints but one man of
is own just rational liberty to regulate
is private conduct and affairs in
matters movement in themselves, wherein
e offends not against peace, public de-
Drum or order, nor the personal rights of
ny, then the government both usurps I'M
powers and assumes to punish
ne man in advance for the possible fall
f another. The argument that because
ne man may offend another must be re-
is the lowest foundation of
tyranny, the cornerstone of despotism.
liberty is never denied to the people any
there on the ground that liberty is